Copyright by Gregory Krauss 2007 - The University of Texas at Austin

Political Base
Lister could not have been successful as a mid-level bureaucrat if he had
worked entirely in isolation. Lister was something of a loner but he was also a
consummate networker. During the first part of his career, Lister’s influence
depended heavily on building alliances with those in positions of higher authority. In
Italy, he acted relatively independently in his initial outreach to the Socialists, but
without Averell Harriman’s intervention, his independence would have cost him his
job. Harriman introduced Lister to Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., with whom Lister worked
productively between 1961 and 1963 to promote an opening to the Italian political
left. It was Harriman who helped create Lister’s flexible “slot” in the State
Department.
Lister’s influence grew beginning in the 1970s in large part because he
expanded his base of friends and contacts. His relationships with human rights
activists and democratic opposition leaders put him in a position in which he was
conducting extremely sensitive and important U.S. diplomacy. He was also the first to
receive information about human rights conditions in countries worldwide. Lister,
who as a child had met “Uncle Joe” Cannon, also built alliances with Members of
Congress. Lister’s closest friends in the legislature included Donald Fraser, Tom
Harkin, and Bill Richardson. As Brandon Grove noted, high-level State Department
officials had to give some deference to Lister or risk coming under fire from
Congress.
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